Transplantation

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Project SONG

Standardization of Organ Nomenclature Globally

Standardization of nomenclature for organ transplant products is needed to improve traceability, vigilance, surveillance and activity reporting. Agreeing on a standard nomenclature will also set the basis for the future introduction of a coding system to support electronic data capture. Such developments will help to eliminate human transcription errors and improve data accuracy.

WHO in collaboration with the International Council for Commonality in Blood Banking Automation (ICCBBA), organized the First Expert Meeting for the Standardization of Organ Nomenclature Globally (SONG) project, with the objective of providing a framework to describe organ transplants.

The nomenclature development process was carried out in three steps:

This initial framework is proposed to stimulate a discussion within the donation/transplantation community, regarding the essential information that will optimize stewardship of organs donated for transplantation.

It is anticipated that there will be modifications to this proposal in the light of feedback to this report, and further discussion within the SONG Project Team. Comments are welcomed and should be addressed to Dr Luc Noël (noell@who.int)